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I'm in Southeastern VA. We had our first hurricane this year in early August, which is very unusual for for region. July was unusually hot with no rain, and now

I'm in Southeastern VA. We had our first hurricane this year in early August, which is very unusual for for region. July was unusually hot with no rain, and now August is nothing but rain every day. What's most interesting to me, however, is that it seems that weather prediction models have literally stopped working all together. I use Windy.com (incredible weather site if you haven't tried it) and you can look at the ECMWF (aka European model), NAM, GFS and Meteoblue models. ECMWF is the most accurate model we have, and it has always been very reliable in my experience. Starting this spring, it seems the model has become wildly inaccurate. It can't even predict the weather anywhere close to accurately even the same day. Highs and lows are often off by 10 degrees F, and rain...forget it. I don't know the exact source of these inaccuracies, but I would be willing to bet climate change has broken some of the assumptions that these models rely on to make their predictions. Those factors may be in a state of flux so that the model can't even be corrected at this point. I would be very interested to hear from anyone else who is familiar with ECMWF and has (or hasn't) noticed the same problems.

spacephysics 6y ago
I believe I heard on NPR that due to the grounding of many planes from Covid, weather models have less data points for prediction.
- eXpl0it3r 6y ago
  Yes, a lot of the detailed weather data is actually provided by planes, but with a lot fewer planes flying, they get fewer data points and the models lose accuracy.
- sliken 6y ago
  Normal passenger planes provide significant data collection for weather predictions?
- IAmGraydon 6y ago
  Interesting! Thanks for that.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Anecdote from Hamburg, Northern Germany. We have something like a "heat wave" here, with now 11 consecutive days above 30°C, which has never happened since the beginning of recording in 1891. Also very localized heavy rains with flooding and storms in the region. Where localized means tree fell onto overhead catenary of railroad and blocked mainline to Hannover. Five kilometers away? Nothing. Funny times. I interpret these events as the first manifestations of extreme weather events as projected by some climate models, due to more energy(heat) in the system.

spacephysics 6y ago

I believe I heard on NPR that due to the grounding of many planes from Covid, weather models have less data points for prediction.

eXpl0it3r 6y ago
Yes, a lot of the detailed weather data is actually provided by planes, but with a lot fewer planes flying, they get fewer data points and the models lose accuracy.
sliken 6y ago
Normal passenger planes provide significant data collection for weather predictions?
IAmGraydon 6y ago
Interesting! Thanks for that.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

Anecdote from Hamburg, Northern Germany. We have something like a "heat wave" here, with now 11 consecutive days above 30°C, which has never happened since the beginning of recording in 1891. Also very localized heavy rains with flooding and storms in the region. Where localized means tree fell onto overhead catenary of railroad and blocked mainline to Hannover. Five kilometers away? Nothing. Funny times. I interpret these events as the first manifestations of extreme weather events as projected by some climate models, due to more energy(heat) in the system.